Martial Arts News

Cristiane Justino’s long-discussed professional boxing debut finally has a date and opponent.

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“Cyborg” announced on "The MMA Hour" that she will square off against Simone Silva in the main event of a Fight Music Show card on Sept. 25. The event will take place at Athletico Paranaense Arena in Curitiba, Brazil, and the organization’s middleweight title will be on the line.

Justino has long expressed a desire to make a foray into the Sweet Science, even going so far as to receive her boxing license from the California State Athletic Commission in 2017. “Cyborg” has previously spent time training with boxing champ — and PFL talent — Claressa Shields. She has also dabbled in muay Thai, notably falling to Jorina Baars under the Lion Fight banner in 2014. As far as MMA goes, the heavy-handed Brazilian is coming off a successful featherweight title defense in a rematch with Arlene Blencowe at Bellator 279 on April 23.

The 39-year-old Silva owns a…

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship will return to Brazil for the first time since March 2020.

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The Las Vegas-based promotion announced on Wednesday that UFC 283 will take place at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro on Jan. 21. It will be the UFC’s 38th event in the South American country and marks the first card there since UFC Fight Night 170 on March 14, 2020, which marked the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. No bouts were revealed for the upcoming event.

Additionally, the promotion announced that UFC Fight Pass, along with Band TV network, will be the broadcast home in Brazil for all UFC events. The streaming service will launch in Brazil on Jan. 1 and includes 12 free events annually on Band. All other UFC events will air in the country via Fight Pass. The UFC’s existing broadcast deal with Globo is set to expire at the end of 2022.

“Anyone who follows this sport knows how important Brazil is to mixed martial arts and to UFC…

It wasn’t quite a full-fledged retirement, but it doesn’t sound like Uriah Hall plans on fighting anytime soon, either.

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The UFC middleweight posted a statement on Instagram announcing that he’ll be “stepping away” from mixed martial arts, a sport where he has competed professionally since 2005.

“It is with great sadness that I will be stepping away from the greatest sport in the world. I’m going to miss the incredible UFC staff that has became like family and the mentors I have met along the way. The UFC has given me the best opportunity to step completely outside my comfort zone,” Hall wrote.

The 38-year-old Hall is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Andre Muniz at UFC 276 on July 2, his second consecutive defeat within the Las Vegas-based promotion. Prior to that, “Primetime” compiled a four-bout winning streak that featured triumphs over the likes of Chris Weidman, Anderson Silva and Antonio Carlos Jr.

“Throughout the years I’ve…

A lightweight clash between Adam Piccolotti and Mansour Barnaoui will serve as the main event for Bellator 287.

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Promotion officials announced the pairing on Wednesday. Bellator 287 takes place at Allianz Cloud Arena in Milan, Italy on Oct. 29 and will see Fabian Edwards face Charlie Ward in the evening’s middleweight co-headliner. Two other contests round out the main draw: Saul Rogers vs. Tim Wilde at lightweight and Justin Gonzales vs. Andrew Fisher at featherweight. The main card will air on Showtime in the United States at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT, while prelims stream on the Bellator MMA YouTube channel, the Showtime Sports YouTube channel and Pluto TV beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET/8:30 a.m. PT.

The announced preliminary card is as follows: Davy Gallon vs. Daniele Scatizzi at lightweight; Simon Biyong vs. Dragos Zubko at light heavyweight; Alfie Davis vs. Thibault Gouti at lightweight; Chiara Penco vs. Manuela Marconetto at strawweight; Yves Landu vs. …

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Gene LeBell, a man who is widely credited for making grappling a popular discipline in combat sports, has died at age 89.

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Lebell was a beloved figure in the martial arts world, and his reach extended to multiple arenas, including judo, mixed martial arts, professional wrestling and as a Hollywood stuntman. He won won the heavyweight and overall Amateur Athletic Union National Judo Championships in 1954 and 1955 before eventually transitioning to professional wrestling.

In more recent years, he become known for being in the corner of former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. However, the list of people he has trained with includes luminaries from multiple walks of life such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris and Roddy Piper, to name a few. Other notables who trained under Lebell include Gokor Chivichyan, Karo Parisyan and Manny Gamburyan.

Lebell has appeared in more than 1,000 movies and h…

Bo Nickal lived up to the hype and then some, but it was not enough to gain entry to the Ultimate Fighting Championship—at least not yet.

The three-time NCAA wrestling champion submitted Zachary Borrego with a first-round rear-naked choke to highlight Week 3 of Dana White’s Contender Series on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Nickal executed an immediate takedown, threatened with a standing guillotine, transitioned seamlessly to the back and bit down on the fight-ending choke. It took all of 62 seconds. Borrego (4-1) never stood a chance. Even so, UFC President Dana White stopped short of welcoming Nickal to the UFC and instead offered him the opportunity to return later in Season 6, where the American Top Team-trained blue-chip prospect could punch his ticket to the promotion with a second win.

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Though they were largely overshadowed by Nickal, three other hopefuls did earn contracts to the UFC: Erik Silva, Clayton Carpenter and Jamal Pogues.…

Sherdog's live DWCS 2022 Week 3 coverage kicks off Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET.

Check out the MMA Forums to discuss the card or enter your comments and predictions below.

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Round 1 Lima, Peru, native Lavado will lock horns with two-time KSW veteran Wojcik after the strawweights had the most heated staredown of any Contender Series bout at Monday’s weigh-ins. Mike Beltran will officiate this clash. Lavado fires a couple straight rights that miss the mark and Wojcik answers with a leg kick. Wojcik is targeting the calf early with several kicks. They tie up briefly and Beltran warns the fighters to watch their heads. Wojcik clinches and drives Lavada into the fence. She drives her head under her opponent’s chin but Lavada is able to create separation in short order. Lavado tags Wojcik with a counter right as her foe moves forward. Wojcik charges forward and drives Lavado back into the cage, just missing a clash of heads. Lavado turns off the fence and reverses …

As expected, Sam Alvey is no longer part of the Ultimate Fighting Championship roster.

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Alvey has parted ways with the Las Vegas-based promotion on the heels of a first-round technical knockout loss to Michal Oleksiejczuk at UFC on ESPN 40 this past Saturday. It was Alvey’s ninth consecutive Octagon appearance without a victory, a UFC record.

“Smile’n” Sam confirmed his departure in good natured fashion while sharing some of his favorite memes regarding the situation via Instagram. “Hey [Jake Paul], I’m not under contract anymore,” he wrote.

Alvey revealed that he suffered a broken jaw in the loss to Oleksiejczuk. His last UFC victory came at UFC Fight Night 131 on June 1, 2018, when he defeated Gian Villante via split decision. His UFC tenure, which began in 2014, included other notable triumphs against the likes of Rashad Evans and Nate Marquardt.

The Bellator 286 lineup continues to grow with the addition of two new bouts, as Aaron Pico faces Jeremy Kennedy at featherweight, whle Juan Archuleta meets Enrique Barzola at bantamweight.

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The promotion confirmed the pairings following an initial report from ESPN. Bellator 286 takes place on Oct. 1 at Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, Calif., and is headlined by a featherweight title tilt between Patricio Freire and Adam Borics. In the co-main event, A.J. McKee makes his lightweight debut against Spike Carlyle.

Four preliminary bouts were also confirmed for the event: Max Rohskopf vs. Mike Hamel at lightweight; Islam Mamedov vs. Nick Browne at lighweight; Keoni Diggs vs. Ricardo Seixas at lightweight and Khadzhimurat Bestaev vs. Khalid Murtazaliev at middleweight.

Pico and Kennedy were initially slated to lock horns at Bellator 277 in April before Kennedy withdrew from the bout. Pico remained on the card and defeated Adli Edwards via third-r…

Anthony Pettis will be on the mend after suffering fractures to his left hand and right thumb in a lightweight playoff loss to Steven Ray at PFL 7.

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The former UFC and WEC lightweight champion posted photos of his X-rays and revealed that he will need to undergo surgery to repair the injuries. Pettis fell to Ray via unanimous decision on Aug. 5, his second consecutive loss to the Scottish UFC veteran. Even if “Showtime” had been victorious, it is unlikely he would have been able to fight in the PFL Championship.

Pettis has gone 1-4 during his PFL tenure, with his lone victory coming against Myles Price via first-round submission on May 6. Since 2015, the Roufusport stalwart is just 7-12 as a professional. It is currently unclear if Pettis will return for the next PFL season.

Ray and Olivier Aubin-Mercier will square off for the lightweight championship and $1 million at an event later this year.

There’s bad injury luck and then there’s what happened to Christos Giagos while the UFC lightweight was doing some work around the house.

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Giagos announced on Monday that he has withdrawn from a proposed UFC Fight Night 209 bout against Benoit St. Denis after severing his pinky on a broken toilet. It’s currently unknown if St. Denis will receive a replacement opponent on the Sept. 3 card.

“It kills me writing this so I’ll keep it short,” Giagos wrote on Instagram. “I was getting some cleaning done and while wiping down a piece of my grill in the trash my hand hit a broken porcelain toilet and gashed my hand open, cutting a tendon in my pinky.

“Unfortunately, due to the severity of the injury I had to pull out of my upcoming fight in Paris. I was praying the damage wasn’t bad so I could still take the fight, but that wasn’t the case.

“I went to a hand specialist today to check the damage and had to undergo a minor surgery to reattach my …

Zachary Borrego was already a significant underdog heading into his matchup with Bo Nickal on Week 3 of Dana White’s Contender Series, and that was before he encountered issues on the scale Monday morning.

Borrego tipped the scales at 187.5 pounds for his middleweight clash with Nickal, which will serve as the card’s featured bout on Tuesday evening. As a result, the fight will proceed as a catchweight, and Borrego will be fined a percentage of his purse. Nickal made weight without issue, checking in at 186 pounds.

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The Contender Series takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Tuesday night and airs on ESPN+ beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

A former three-time NCAA national champion wrestler at Penn State University, Nickal is one of the more highly-touted prospects in recent memory to appear on the Contender Series. The 26-year-old made his professional MMA debut on June 3, when he knocked out John Noland in 33 seconds at Jorge Masvidal’s iKon F…